CHAPTER 3 - Chevy Ray

“Well hello Jessy,” said Chevy Ray with a stern expression as he squeezed the tip off his cigar with a cigar clipper. “If only you had returned my attempts to speak with you, it wouldn’t have come to this.”

“What the fuck you doing dragging us here at gun point? What do you want from me? I’m out of the crime business, in case you didn’t get the fuckin memo.”

The two men sitting on each side of Chevy began to giggle. Jessy knows them as Deke McSlime and The Moose, Chevy’s two capos.

“You boys seem to be getting even more uglier with age,” said Jessy. “Too bad your mothers were Thalidomide addicts.”

Polak Pete provides a slap across the back of her head from behind.

“Do that again and I’ll ram this cane up your fuckin scrotum hole till it comes out of your sperm inhaler!”

“I see ten years of prison hasn’t changed you Jessy,” intervened Chevy with a chuckle. “Still got that creatively vulgar vocabulary and short Scottish temper to go with it.”

“You know this man?” interrupted Lilly, sobbing momentarily reduced to sniffing. Polak Bill is about to provide a bitch-slap on the back of her head but Chevy waved him to stand down. “You were in prison for ten years?” she continued. “Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you were working on your family's farm. You lied to me!”

“You’re a very pretty lady,” interrupted Chevy with a quiet piercing voice, staring deep into Lilly’s eyes. “If you want to stay that way, I suggest you keep your mouth shut from now on cause this is way above your head.”

Lilly put her head down and resumed quietly sobbing and whimpering.

“It’s okay baby.” Jessy provided a comforting touch on Lilly’s trembling hand, but Lilly pulled away.

Jessy felt devastated and angry at the same time. She began to study her surroundings more carefully and for the first time, noticed a figure bound to a chair at the far end of the table. His blindfolded face was covered with bruises, cuts, and dried blood. It’s her brother, Chester.

“What’s Rat Boy doing here?” she blurted out.

“Well, funny you should ask. If you’ll allow me to speak I’ll be happy to tell you.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Turns out that Chester here has racked up a large debt at one of my gambling operations.”

Jessy looked over at him. “Stupid Rat Boy.” Then to Chevy, “how much?”

“Two hundred grand, even.”

Jessy shook her head in disgust mixed with disbelief. “Well, what do you want me to do about it? You can pour gas on him and light him up for all I care. I’ll even give you the fuckin matches.”

Chevy chuckled then went silent, glancing over to The Moose as he inserted the cigar into his mouth. The Moose quickly drew out a zippo lighter, flicked it to life, and lit his cigar.

“Never mind stuffing a big brown dick in your mouth. Get to the point, fuck sakes!”

Chevy took a long drag and slowly exhaled the smoke upwards, engulfing the single light bulb dangling down from the ceiling by its power cord.

“No matter what your brother has done to you, he’s still your brother. Surely you wouldn’t want such a terrible thing happen to him over a couple of hundred grand. A couple of hundred grand you can easily come up with.”

“Oh, no problem,” Jessy chuckled sarcastically. “I’ll just pull two-hundred grand out of my ass and shove it up yours. Would that work?”

“Well, I was actually thinking of something you’re more experienced at than pulling money out of your ass. Although if you do decide to do such a thing, I’d like to watch.”

“Oh no.” Jessy shook her head, knowing what was coming next. “I’m not doing any more Jobs. Not after what I been through. Not going to happen. No fuckin way.”

“Okay, I’ll get to that in a moment” said Chevy, “because I think the time for small talk is over.

“Small talk?” Jessy laughed scathingly. “I think this is a wee bit more than small talk.”

“There’s a bank - the Royal Bank - over on the island in that sleepy little shit-hole town of Nanaimo that still has an old Class M vault. It’s the type you’re all familiar with and could break into without too much difficulty – well at least by you, the infamous McKenzy Trio.”

Jessy scoffed. She was all too familiar with Nanaimo, having spent her teenage years there in foster homes.

Chevy continued.

“The best time to hit it would be tomorrow night, Thursday, and for a couple of reasons. But most importantly, Friday is a big payday for the local logging and sawmill workers. Plus, there’s a huge cash transfer between some logging tycoons and Jap lumber buyers. Another reason is it looks like the weather will be perfect for the job.”

He paused for moment and took another long drag from his cigar.

"My insider connections indicate there will be over a million in cash in the vault, some in smaller denominations. More than enough to pay Chester’s gambling debt with plenty leftover for yourselves. Then you and your girlfriend here can afford to, well, move to a warmer climate for example and take up knitting or something.”

A warmer climate? How could Chevy know that her future plans included moving down to the tropics with Lilly, wondered Jessy. Or was the comment just a coincidence? Every criminal and jail bird she knew had dreams of retiring in the tropics – if they managed to stay alive that long. She put it aside for later consideration. 

“And what do I get from all this?” Jessy is not yet convinced, although the ‘million dollars’ part did spark interest.

“Besides getting your brother’s debt paid in full and saving him from a slow and painful death? The usual, half the take less the two hundred large. That still leaves you over three hundred grand, probably more. Pretty good pay cheque for a nights work I’d say, and perhaps make up for all that prison time.”

Jessy thought for a moment then looked over at Chester with hateful contempt. “Nope, still won’t do it. That pathetic fuck isn’t worth it. Besides, taking on such a job requires weeks if not months of planning, not to mention specialty equipment and tools which, I might add, is Rat Boy’s specialty.”

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence before Jessy posed the next obvious question.

“Just out of curiosity, who’s going to use those tools and equipment if you’re holding Rat Boy? Louis can't do it by himself.” 

The answer became apparent as soon as the words left her mouth.

Chevy nodded up at Polak Bill, standing behind Lilly. “Chester won’t be held prisoner – your girlfriend here will be held instead. Take this pretty Chinese lady out to my car, Billy.”

Jessy began to stand up before Chevy finished his sentence. “NO!”

Polak Pete, still standing behind Jessy, roughly pushed her back down and held her in the chair. His twin brother proceeded to drag Lilly, screaming with terror, up from her chair and away from the table. Both Deke McSlime and The Moose pulled out their revolvers and aimed them at Jessy.

“Wait by the car Billy. We’ll be out in a minute.” Chevy turned back to Jessy with a relishing grin after Lilly disappeared through the exit on the far side of the warehouse.

“What are you doing?” yelled Jessy. “You can’t do this. She’s a civilian. She’s MY civilian!” Jessy struggled against Polak Pete to stand up again as she continued to protest. The two Capos, guns still aimed at Jessy, disengaged the safeties. She slowly sat back down, glaring at Chevy.

“You fuckin shit heap!”

“Oh, how I missed that vocabulary of yours. It’s so entertaining,” he said with a laugh. “But don’t worry, no harm will come to her - for forty-eight hours at least. After that, well, I already told you what happens next. It will be a shame cause she has such pretty little fingers. And I’m sure she has a pretty little…wel, never mind.”

“Okay. I’ll do it. But if anything happens to her I’ll hunt you down and kill every one of ya.” She glared at the three men sitting in front of her. “I gauran-fuckin-tee-it!”

Chevy ignored the threat. “Oh, and PS, If you don’t bring the money, there will be a price on your heads too. All three of ya, and I gauran-fuckin-tee-it.”

Chevy stubbed his cigar into the over flowing ashtray and stood up. “I’ll call you in the morning with further details and maybe you’ll pick up the phone this time. In the meantime, my men will drop you off somewhere where you can catch a taxi to wherever you’re going.”

“You payin the fuckin cab fare?” said Jessy.

Chevy smiled at Jessy as he took his wallet out, opened it, took out a twenty-dollar bill and dropped it down on the table in front of her. "Fucking Scottish Jews."

With that, he turned around and walked toward the same exit Lilly had just been dragged through. McSlime and The Moose holstered their guns and followed. Polak Bill returned a moment later.

Jessy picked up the twenty-dollar bill then walked over to Chester in a state of rage, yelling in short sentences and trashing him with every vulgar phrase she knew. She was about to start hitting him when Louis jumped up, reached over and pulled her back.

Then she turned around to Louis. “Did you know Rat Boy was going to be here, Louis?”

“No. Sorry Jessy, but I didn’t see this coming any more than you did. I thought it was the pizza delivery guy knocking on my door.”

“Dam it!”

“Okay, enough shatter,” said Polak Pete.

“Yeah, p-put the blindfolds on,” said Polak Bill as he tossed two blind folds onto the table. “We’ll b-be watching, so no p-peeking.” He walked over to Chester and untied him from the chair.

The three siblings were escorted back out to the limousine. It came to a stop ten minutes later at the Simpson Sears department store in Surrey.